`Pocahontas'

Disney's Latest Effort Turns History Into Fiction

June 15, 1995

The Walt Disney Co. is likely to make enough money off its new animated film "Pocahontas" to ease the sting of the criticism now being aimed at the movie. Which just shows that Disney executives' sense of what sells is better developed than their sense of obligation to present history as accurately as possible.

The criticism is coming on two points and is well deserved. First, there's the issue of Pocahontas' figure. She has been called "Superwoman with a Wonderbra" who wears a "deerskin from Victoria's Secret." What we have is male fantasy, not history. Pocahontas has posthumously become the first Native American pinup girl.

But really, complaints about the movie's characterization of Pocahontas' physical attributes are of less concern given the realization that this is fiction, not history. Remember that, and tell your children. Tell them that, yes, there was an Indian girl - not a woman - who saved an English settler named Capt. John Smith, but that if they want to know the true story, they should consult a history book or encyclopedia. Perhaps one benefit of the movie will be that people who haven't already read about or been taught the story of Pocahontas will get the truth after they get out of the movie theater.

Unfortunately, Disney's effort will more likely result in a generation of misinformed children. Too bad. The real story is interesting enough. Disney should have told that, or it should have given its film another name and not pretended to be in the history business. All of which makes you wonder what kind of history Disney would have presented in its aborted "history" theme park in Northern Virginia.